1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally provides a system, method and program product for providing artifact and configuration cohesion across disparate portal application models.
2. Related Art
Web portals have become an increasingly popular means of delivering aggregated, targeted content to computer users. A portal page is typically rendered and delivered from a portal server. A portal program (e.g., WebSphere Portal Server from International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y.) on the web server obtains and aggregates portal content into the portal page. As known, the portal page includes sections or visual portlets that each contain particular portal content formatted according to certain preferences. In a growing number of instances, portal pages are being used by companies as a way to provide information to potential customers. For example, a portal page for a company could include a portal containing general information and one or more other portals containing information about available goods and/or services.
Over the past few years, the pendulum of technology used to build portal page-based websites and web applications has moved from simple static pages to dynamic and interactive pages. These rich web applications are typically a combination of client-side technology (e.g., Javascript, VBscript, Flash, Applets, etc.) and server-side components (e.g., Portlets, Servlets, JSPs, etc.). The natural commingling of functionality and ubiquity of the rich client technologies allows web application designers to create highly interactive, yet centrally managed applications. Thus, many companies now view the combination of client-side scripting technologies in combination with traditional server side components as a viable and capable platform for advanced web application development and delivery.
Traditionally, portal editors built using client-side technology and server-side components are encapsulated as standalone packages (e.g., WAR, EAR, etc.) so that they can be reused as a component in an overall system, while benefiting from the characteristics of standalone applications (e.g., packaging, installation, clustering, etc.) An example of this is combining “on-demand” editors with document management facilities in the portal server. Unfortunately, this sort of interaction stresses the boundaries of the J2EE specification for inter-servlet communication and artifact sharing. Additionally, this integration into portal platforms becomes very problematic due to the nature of the portlet application model. Specifically, portlets assume control of the overall programming model and thus, do not provide sufficient facilities for application integration into these standalone, rich browser applications. This is troublesome in view of the fact that portlets traditionally play the role of the user interface in the orchestration of an overall application.
Since this combination-based programming model will only become further solidified within the industry with the advent of the JSR168 portlet specification, a system/process is needed to augment disparate programming models to allow for the seamless integration of applications. That is, in a system that commingles portal-based applications and rich client-side technology (e.g., advanced productivity editors), the cohesion of various environmental artifacts such as the current portal theme or portlet configuration settings is needed. This is especially needed in view of the disconnected nature of traditional portal navigation and editor interfaces.